[1] Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to an image forming apparatus connected to a network, an image processing method and a program.
[2] Related Art
A meeting management system used, in a company or the like that holds meetings, for distributing meeting information from meeting organizers to individual participants before each meeting is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2002-132837.
This meeting management system is configured by connecting a terminal of each meeting organizer, a terminal of each participant, and a server storing meeting materials therein by a network. The meeting management system allows a meeting organizer to transmit, via the network, meeting information to the terminal of each participant before the meeting. Here, a hyperlink to a storage location of a meeting material is inserted into the meeting information so that each participant is able to browse the meeting material on its own terminal.
However, the meeting management system above is designed so that the meeting organizer unilaterally transmits meeting information to the terminal of each participant. Therefore, for example, if a participant mistakenly deletes the meeting information on its terminal before seeing it, the meeting material cannot be printed out beforehand. In such a case, the participant may ask the meeting organizer to transmit the meeting information again if knowing who the meeting organizer is; however, this will be a redundant operation for the meeting organizer. Furthermore, if the participant does not know who the meeting organizer is, there is no way for the participant to obtain the meeting material. It may still be possible that the participant accesses the server and searches for the meeting material; however, the search operation will claim significant time and effort if vast amounts of files are saved on the server.
This kind of problem is not unique to meeting management systems, and could happen in a similar fashion to systems used for distributing related materials to a lot of participants—for example, distributing lecture notes and other materials to students at schools.